The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to wireless communications via a mesh network. Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or access points, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple mobile devices. Each base station or access point provides a limited coverage range and couples to a core network a via wired backhaul communication. However, deploying large number of base stations or access points with wired infrastructure may not be cost effective. An alternative to the traditional method of wireless communication includes wireless mesh networks where mobile devices (and other wireless communication devices) may form networks without base stations or equipment other than the mobile devices themselves.
Wireless mesh networks are dynamically self-organized and self-configured with nodes in the network automatically establishing an ad-hoc network with other nodes such that the network connectivity is maintained. In a mesh network topology, each node relays data for the network and all nodes cooperate in the distribution of data within the network. As a result, a message in the mesh network is transmitted from a source node to the destination node by being propagated along a path, hopping from one node to the next until the destination is reached. Conventional methods select a path between the source node and the destination node based on factors such as an airtime link between each node. Such methods, however, fail to consider the type of data (e.g., unicast message or broadcast traffic) requested or whether an existing intermediate node exists between the two nodes that may readily satisfy the request as a basis for selecting a path between the source and the destination node.